Crimea awaiting new investment, changes in West's opinion after French MPs' visit

The delegation came to the federal city of Sevastopol where they met with the city's Acting Governor

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YALTA, July 30. /TASS/. Crimean authorities hope that French investors will begin to reach out to Crimea upon the results of the current visit to the region by a group of French MPs while the stance of official quarters in the West will start changing in favor of the region, the Speaker of the Crimean legislature, Vladimir Konstantinov told reporters on Saturday in Yalta.

"The French MPs will go back home with our proposals for investors and that's very important for us," he said. "Crimea is an interesting place because the world doesn't have all too many regions with a real potential."

"Take the West, for instance, where it's difficult to establish anything new because the economy there is developed so much, and here many new niches opened up after our return home (meaning Crimea's reunification with Russia TASS)," Konstantinov said. "You can buy, you can sell, and all of this will evoke interest."

He voiced the confidence that the French MPs would come to Crimea many more times in the future.

"It's not their last visit here," Konstantinov said. "Many more visits are lying ahead of us."

MP Thierry Mariani, who co-chairs the Franco-Russian Dialogue Association, told reporters he was ready to keep coming to Crimea until the West lifted sanctions from the region.

Konstantinov believes time will come when "everyone rushes to Crimea to makes pledges of friendship."

"They will be saying they didn't understand or didn't know something, that the events had been misconstrued, but we'll treasure these very people and have respect for them," he said. "These courageous people do the job that's invisible, as they create public opinion back at home."

The group of eleven members of the French National Assembly led by Thierry Mariani arrived in Crimea on a three-day visit on Friday. The guests laid flowers at a local memorial compound and had meetings with Crimean officials.

On Saturday, the delegation came to the federal city of Sevastopol where they met with the city's Acting Governor. After lunch, the French deputies visited the Massandra vinery and the beach city of Yalta where they took a stroll on the embankment and spoke to local residents.

On Sunday, they will take part in festivities devoted to Russian Navy Day.